A Love Letter to Cleveland and Baseball
My life and times as a Cleveland baseball fan
“In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. You work for everything you have.”
As a five year-old in 2003, there were three people I remember being talked about: Jim Tressel, Scooby-Doo, and LeBron James...and also God. Him, too. In America, sports are a vital source of entertainment, of fandom, of economy, but growing up in the Canton/Massillon area, sports, more specifically football, were the glue of community. Rivalries defined my local fandom of my sports teams. Whether it was the unification of an entire state every Thanksgiving weekend for The Game, or the neighboring cities where I grew up in going into a week-long blood feud every October for Massillon versus McKinley depending on which side of Perry Drive you lived, sports ruled all. You lived on the side of Lincoln Way East? You were likely a Massillon fan. West Tuscarawas? Probably McKinley. That’s the way it was.
I grew up a fan of all the local teams except the Browns. If you were a child in 2003, Ohio sports were largely on the come up, except the Browns. The Cavs were in the process of going from laughing stock to must-watch because of the Chosen One, Ohio State just won a National Championship (it was pass interference), and we also had a baseball team.
I saw a lot of winning as a child into my teen years from the teams I rooted for. The Steelers won a pair of Super Bowls which I proceeded to brag about in my Troy Polamalu jersey at school both times to every Browns fan I knew, and Ohio State also won a couple titles and never lost to Michigan...NEVER. Of the sports teams I rooted for, only one team has ever come close to Ohio State football, and that’s the baseball team on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
Winning and Cleveland have never been synonymous; not in my lifetime, nor in my parents’, but hope always has been, no matter how misguided or naïve, and no matter what anyone tells you, it’s baseball that always represented the city best in that way.
Baseball is my favorite sport, and it was engrained into me from my parents. My dad always told me stories about he and my mom going on dates and watching the likes of Albert Belle, Jim Thome, and Sandy Alomar Jr. for Canton-Akron down at Munson Stadium in their early years of their marriage, but he always talked about going and seeing Cory Snyder’s rehab starts. The days of thinking a top prospect would pan out only to be sorely disappointed is a tradition unlike any other for any Indians or Guardians fan of all ages. Here’s to you, Matt LaPorta.
I distinctly remember my first baseball game at Jacobs Field as one of my earliest core memories. It was 2001, July 4th, and it was Manny Ramírez’s first series back in Cleveland after signing with Boston. We won 9-1, but this unfortunately would be the first of many old friends turned future foes.
My mother is my greatest role model and biggest life influence. She and my dad also probably saved my life when I was six, but that’s a story for another day. I am who I am because of her in all the good ways, but two qualities have always made us different. I root for every sports team my parents do except for one.
My mom is a devout North Carolina basketball fan, but that was where my first rebellious act towards my parents happened. Where she was a Tar Heel, I decided I wanted to be a Blue Devil, and I bled Duke blue through and through every March, much to her disappointment. She had Sean May and Tyler Hansbrough, and I was obsessed with JJ Redick and Nolan Smith. The second difference is that my mother does not have a hateful bone in her body. She loves everybody and never treated sports as life or death. I also do not possess a lot of hate, but with sports, that is very different. I grew up hating three teams: the team up north, North Carolina...and the New York Yankees.
Oh, for it to be 2007 again. To be 10 years old, watching your high school’s football team upset McKinley on a televised Friday night football game with your friends while listening to your mom’s handheld radio while the Cleveland Indians played those dastardly New York Yankees in the ALDS. Hearing the legendary voice of Tom Hamilton narrating Joba Chamberlain’s Revelations-esque battle with midges as if it were a plague of locusts sent to curse the bastards from the Bronx while me and my friends went into a frenzy is something I’ll never forget.
Going home from that football game and watching the highlights back on SportsCenter was unbelievable. From the pitching coach and trainers coming out and dousing Chamberlain in bug spray prior to throwing the wild pitch Grady scored on to tie the game to Travis Hafner’s walk-off hit to win it in extras, that night was the night I knew I loved baseball.
Then the series against Boston happened. Experiencing heartbreak at a young age with baseball toughened me for all the future battles with this team to come. Blowing that 3-1 lead only to see Boston walk its way through Colorado to a World Series will always stick with me. From there, the pain only piled on.
Seeing CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee win back-to-back Cy Young’s and Grady Sizemore go from the game’s most exciting player to quickly turn into unknowingly seeing CC and Cliff Lee traded a year after their best seasons while Grady never got healthy again hurt a lot. I remember meeting Victor Martinez on a summer field trip and getting his silver chest protector as a backpack at the game just to see him traded days later.
The post-Wedge, Manny Acta years were so hard. In fact, I stopped watching altogether in 2010. Between growing up and having more put on my plate at school to being so angry at my favorite team getting rid of my favorite players, I needed time away. For this, I owe an apology to Shin-Soo Choo. You deserved my attention and are forever underrated.
Then 2013 came around. I’m starting high school and the Cleveland Indians hire Terry Francona. I’M BACK BABY. That’s all it took! The team that I so religiously watched break my heart made a franchise changing move, and I was ready to have hope again. I was ready to dive in head-first again, and dammit if I wasn’t a residential member of BROHIO. If you thought Josh Bell was a rough free agent signing, you have no idea.
I was back, and this was a team ready to rebuild, but this time with the right man leading the franchise into doing things the right way. When rebuilding, you look to the future, and oh was the future bright in Cleveland. Their first round pick from 2011 had ascended up the ranks, becoming a top-15 prospect in all of baseball. This, of course, was Francisco Lindor. Lindor was the future. A switch-hitting, gold glove caliber shortstop with legit power and speed had all the ingredients to turn this franchise around, but he wasn’t quite there yet in 2013. Someone else was, though, and I remember thinking, wow, this guy is awesome.
He stood at just 5-foot-9 just like I did at 16 years old at the time, and he was a switch hitting, do-it-all utility rookie, called up for a handful of at-bats in September of 2013. He hadn’t seen a single game over Double-A Akron, but he carried himself as if he’d been playing pro ball for a decade. This was José Ramírez.
José was far from becoming José though, and I remember in 2014 thinking, wow, this guy stinks. Shame on me, right?
It wasn’t all so bad though. Carlos Carrasco went from a reliever at the start of the 2014z season to pitching a Maddux against the Astros by September as a starter, and he somehow wasn’t even close to the biggest story in the rotation. That top spot belonged to the stoic face of Corey Kluber. Sure, Cy Young’s are awesome, but what’s even better is a Cy Young winner who’s going to be around for a while, and that’s exactly what we had in Kluber. The pieces were falling into place.
By 2015, I was on my hands and knees begging for Francisco Lindor, and at long last, the wishes of a fanbase were granted. From the first inning of Lindor’s call-up, the game changed. Watching him play shortstop must have been what it felt like to be a kid in New York watching Jeter as a kid, and he did it with a smile always on his face. His energy was infectious, and he was the ladder to the level of contenders we had been waiting for this team to get back to for almost a decade.
2016 was the year it all fell in place. For the first time since 2007, we won the division. Francisco Lindor was budding into a superstar, and that José Ramírez guy was back, but this time he was crushing baseballs, and I was back to thinking wow, this guy is awesome, and that hasn’t changed since.
The 2016 World Series is all of the hope and heartbreak one fan could ever feel cranked to 10. We were finally back. It was our first World Series appearance since 1997, and that 69 year World Series drought might finally be over. Problem was, the other team saw our drought and laughed. The Chicago Cubs had gone without a World Series win for well over 100 years, and they had a trio of young phenom of their own in Kris Bryant. Regardless, they were no match for us and certainly no match for Roberto Pérez through four games. Pérez had hit just three home runs all season, but in game one of the World Series, he socked out a pair of dingers, and the momentum of that anomaly as well as the left arm of Andrew Miller carried us to a 3-1 series lead, and here we were again.
It’s funny in a sad way. 2007 was an incredible season that haunted me ever since, and as soon as Game Seven started, the black cloud of that blown series nine years prior loomed overhead Progressive Field. Almost as soon as the feeling overwhelmed my brain, Dexter Fowler took Corey Kluber deep to lead off the game. My heart sunk.
The wild pitch that scored ‘Los and Kipnis that cut the lead to 5-3 had me back in. Those are the kinds of plays that winners make. I had hope again.
Then *it* happened. That home run. That damned home run. Rajai Davis. We were going to win the World Series. The near seven decade drought and my own personal nine-year-old curse was broken. Just as I had hope again, that black cloud opened, and down came the rain. The rain in Cleveland that night washed away all the momentum, and Chicago grabbed it and ran with it all the way to a World Series title.
I saw 2017 as the ultimate possible team for Cleveland. A free agent acquisition worked out for the first time in what felt like ever when Edwin Encarnación came in and mashed 38 homers while José and Lindor became top 10 players in the sport. On top of that, the Klubot won yet another Cy Young as the ace of the best rotation not just in baseball, but in Cleveland’s history.
Despite getting to see Francisco Lindor’s grand slam in person against the Yankees in the ALDS, we ultimately saw the best Indians team of the 21st century go down in flames, and with it, any hope of a World Series.
By the time 2021 rolled around, the same old song and dance was commencing. Lindor, Kluber, ‘Los, and Carrasco were traded unceremoniously. Andrew Miller and Cody Allen were long gone. The one remnant of that World Series team was José Ramírez, but he was set to hit free agency soon.
Then...that didn’t happen. He stayed.
Staring down the barrel of a rebuild and a contract offer grossly underpaying him, José had every reason to say no with little reason for fans to be truly upset with him, but he accepted the contract offer and embraced the rebuild not just as a player, but as a leader.
To José Ramírez,
You changed Cleveland baseball forever. No one sees the light of free agency and a chance to get out of Cleveland and chooses to stay. Thome left, LeBron left, everyone else gets traded, but not you. Cleveland is a city of underdogs, and no one embraces that the way you did. From undervalued to underrated to undeniable, you are the light-bearer that shines in Cleveland when no one else is left to carry the torch. You are the greatest player in the history of this proud franchise and my favorite player ever. Thank you for staying.
In closing, as we near another season of the unknown with Cleveland Guardians baseball, hope will guide us all together with this group. Young prospects ready to prove their worth, old faces looking to bounce back from a rough 2023, and an overall muddied picture of the future await us in 2024, but, like always, we will have hope.